Six Sunday Sessions: Time to… Hibernate with Poetry

Tutor: Vicky Morris
Full details here.

The shortest days require slippers, hot chocolate, a heated blanket at your desk (or is that just us?) and very importantly – poetry.  Join prize-winning poet, teacher and editor, Vicky Morris for a block of six winter poetry workshops to generate exciting new drafts and explore key tips and tricks on all things editing. Expect a wide range of poetry inspiration and great examples of poems before and after editing.

Suitable for fledgling poets and those in full flight, these 2hr and 15-minute leisurely workshops will allow time to expand your practice in the company of a supportive group, gain feedback and enjoy discussion around a poetry fire that will keep you warm (And there was no joke about haibun-ation…. 🙂

   “Passionate and generous, Vicky creates innovative and engaging workshops which build enjoyment, skill and confidence in writing, and which – evident from numerous anthologies and award-winners – generate spectacular creative work.

   “Vicky has an unerring feel for the right line, tone and form and is a fantastic diagnostician of what is not working with a poem – and what is.” Mentee Cian Ferriter, Earth’s Black Chute (Southword Editions 2022)

Full details here.

Greetings winter darkness!

Phew! What a busy autumn it’s been with new young writers’ groups starting and lots of Hive activity for the Off the Shelf Festival of Words – including the launch of The Camellia House & Other Stories, an anthology of poetry and fiction inspired by the families, gardens and histories of Wentworth Woodhouse.

It was such a joy to edit and contextualise this wonderfully evocative collection of writing. There’s the most magnificent range of creative work that tenderly, innovatively, and sometimes humorously, brings history to life through compelling new voices.  Accompanying the work, are many absorbing contextual and historical insights, such as the importance of pineapples in 1800s England, and what life ‘below stairs’ was really like. The anthology features the micro-commissioned works of 31 emerging writers aged 16+ from the Hive network, many of whom were inspired to write several pieces. These include prize-winning writers such as Luke Worthy and Freya Bantiff, and Sheffield Poet Laureates Warda Yassin (2020-22) and Beth Davies (2024-26). There are also pieces from several established writers including Ian McMillan and Helen Mort.

“The Camellia House & Other Stories offers us a beautiful and varied collection of hymns to the past, as emerging writers celebrate and sing the history of Wentworth Woodhouse. Here you will find exotic animal interactions and religious visions, the voices of aristocrats, servants and disgruntled vegetables, the sound of giggles which carry across history. This wonderful collection creates a place in which the writers of tomorrow and the people of history can meet, through the magic of language, in the most fantastic, shared now.” Jonathan Edwards: Poet & Fiction Writer

The perfect Christmas present for the history buff or word lover!
Buy The Camellia House & Other Stories here.
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And it’s been a joy to see the Canal Works project, and resulting crowd-sourced poem by Hive poet Warda Yassin, waking from slumber to make its mark on the Sheffield to Tinsley canal.

In 2021, I was delighted to mentor and support Warda on the project, devising and delivering workshops inspired by the canal’s waterways, wildlife and histories, with members of the public and young people from the Mixing Roots Programme. The Canal Works project – a Waterlines collaboration between The Poetry Society and the Canal & River Trust – was aimed at celebrating the history and life of the Sheffield to Tinsley Canal route.

The project culminated in Warda creating a crowd-sourced poem using writing produced in the workshops. The poem Canal Works, inspired an installation by local Sheffield artist Grace Visions which is now displayed along a wall by the Bacon Lane Bridge entrance of the Sheffield to Tinsley Canal, with an accompanying QR code to the full poem.

You can watch short films [by Aidan Joseph] of the poem and the creation of the installation here. Read the full text of the poem here.
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Also this autumn, it was a lovely moment to bring together the readings of five of the eight Hive poets who have won the New Poets Prize over the last eight years at Off the Shelf Festival of Words. Hive New Poets winners over the years are: Safia Khan (2021), Warda Yassin (2018), Beth Davies (2022), Lauren Hollingsworth Smith (2020), Georgie Woodhead (2020), Luke Worthy (2023) Freya Bantiff (2023) Charlie Jolley (2024). I’m so very proud of them all and it’s been the biggest delight to see them develop their confidence and voice over the years.

And finally, last but certainly not least, Hive poet Beth Davies was announced Sheffield Poet Laureate (2024-26) at Off the Shelf Festival of Words by previous laureate Danae Wellington (2022-24) on Thursday 24th Oct 2024. The aim of the laureateship is to champion engagement in poetry and support its wider community reach.

Both poets follow fellow Hive poet Warda Yassin who was Sheffield’s second laureate from 2020 to 2022, succeeding Otis Mensah.

Heroines Anthology [preorder]

I’m excited to have a poem in Heroines Anthology: Volume 5 available to preorder here. Oh, to make the launch in Sidney! Thanks so much to Sarah Nicholson and co.

In Heroines: An Anthology of Poetry ‘Meet mythological women and goddesses from across the globe, dryads and selkies, muses and manasa, artists, space explorers and more’

When life gives you lemons :)

Delighted to have a poem in the gorgeous Irish poetry, fiction & art journal The Waxed Lemon. You can buy it here Thank you to Derek & Joanne at TWL. 

Hello July

July greetings to all!. Delighted to have just received my contributor’s copy of Issue 46 of Southwords. How gorgeous is this cover?(‘Domestic Madonna’ by Rita Duffy). Also, the cover of ‘100 Poems of Hope’ a new anthology from The Samaritans (proceeds to) I’m chuffed to have a poem in, available here.

A special week…

Such a special week co-tutoring with the mighty Vanessa Lampert at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre of Wales for The Writing School last week and a gorgeous group of poets, topped off by a stunning guest reading from Warda Yassin. Ann missing from photo! Kathryn Bevis, you were there too in words shared, inspiration & poetry spirit
In other news, just had a poem accepted for the brilliant The Waxed Lemon. And here’s a fun photo from the Wow Festival neurodiversity panel I did in May. I hope everyone is enjoying summer!

May update

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and here we are in May no less! I hope this finds you well, sun-licked and bird-songed. Speaking of hope, I’m chuffed to have a few poems accepted for coming anthologies, one being: an anthology of poems about hope from The Samaritans, published in July in paperback and Kindle. I’m also delighted to have been shortlisted for the Heroines Writing Prize and have poem in Volume 5 of Heroines Anthology from Neo Perennial Press, themed around telling women’s lost histories, or untold stories and reimagining women in myth, fairytale, folklore and legend.

This Saturday 11^th May I’m speaking on a panel about neurodiversity and mental health with Georgia Bondy and Jennifer Booth at Wow Festival in Rotherham. And later this month, I’m so thrilled to be back teaching at the magic Ty Newydd Writing Centre of Wales with Vanessa Lampert for a full house of poets on ‘Writing the Rooms of the Poem’.

Busy times…

It’s been a busy time recently but lots of fun and fine creative connections teaching two retreats for Arvon at Hebden Bridge, and Ty Newydd in Wales in February and March. And yesterday I had a lovely little trip to Birmingham with Hive Young Poets Luke Worthy, Fae Horsley and Lalla Waddington for the National Poetry Collectives Showcase at Uni Slam. I’m currently planning for two writing projects and doing lots of mentoring. And spring is coming! 

Retreats! Retreats!

Hello people of 2024! I hope the year has started well for you 🙂 Just a very quick post as I’m busy-busy on catch up after a rubbish, dragging cold. I’m excited to be teaching three residential retreats with the wonderful Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre of Wales & Arvon this spring! The first is actually in February and it’s a Welsh young writers’ retreat. I was fortunate enough to run this last year, with fiction and screenwriter, Russ Litten, and it was such a gorgeous course with lovely young people, so I’m really looking forward to it again! I hope we have the same mild bright weather as last time. It was like a perfect early spring 🙂

Then on the 11th of March, I’m running a Starting to Write ‘Let your writing take flight’ Arvon retreat for the Lumb Bank centre at Hebden Bridge with co-tutor, the brilliant Jacob Ross and visiting writer Alycia Pirmohamed. A little of the blurb here: Do you feel unsure about how to get your writing off the ground? Do you want to get your flying machine of ideas into the air and landing on the dreaded blank page? What about support for writing you’ve already started? If you’re a new or fledgling writer, keen to explore fiction and poetry in a warm and supportive environment, this course will help your writing take flight. If you know anyone who might be interested, please pass on the details! 

And in May (26th-31st), I’m doing another poetry-focused retreat Writing the Rooms of the Poem at the magical Tŷ Newydd writing centre of Wales, with the brilliant Vanessa Lampert. Our guest reader is the wonderful Warda Yassin. We’ve endeavoured to keep the retreat as affordable as possible, and much less than the usual cost for these types of retreats but there are also discounted bursary places available for anyone who wants to apply. Details here.

Mainspring Arts Poetry Course

Just a quick end of year post to mention this online poetry course I’m running for Mainspring Arts aimed at neurodivergent people. Starts February 2023 and runs on Sunday evenings. There are two other fab courses to choose from too (Writing the Self & Freedom to Play). All details here.

And last bit of lovely news to end 2024: delighted to have a short story/monologue in the 100th issue of Mslexia (my favourite magazine!) Poetry dream realised 🙂 Happy holidays and here’s hoping for a better year for so many in 2025.